During THA, ensuring proper alignment of an acetabular component or implant with respect to a pelvis of a patient is important. The acetabular cup implant has to be properly positioned, preferably with respect to predefined and generally accepted anatomical reference planes of the pelvis such as the anterior pelvic plane (APP). The acetabular implant and the femoral implant form the artificial hip joint. Alignment of these prosthetic components has typically been performed relying solely on a surgeon's judgment of their spatial location. Studies have shown that failure to properly align the acetabular components or implant with the pelvis may lead to premature wear, propensity to dislocate and patient discomfort. Intra-operative surgical navigation systems and methods can assist surgeons in providing guidance in the placement of the prosthesis in the body of the patient to improve clinical outcomes.
These intra-operative surgical navigation systems and methods may identify anatomical planes by localizing a patient's bony landmarks to assist in the 3D spatial localization of prosthetic components. Depending on the surgical approach taken, different challenges of spatial localization arise as the availability of bony landmarks differs with the approach.
Surgical navigations systems and various embodiments are described in U.S. patent publication No. 20120157887 entitled “Method and system for aligning a prosthesis during surgery” and U.S. patent publication No. 20160249987 entitled “Systems, methods and devices for anatomical registration and surgical localization”, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.